John Warner Profile picture
Jan 21 4 tweets 2 min read
When teaching was the central focus of my work, I got to regularly experience a feeling of progress and accomplishment. It's a big motivator. But I wonder if that sense is much harder to come by even for those who are still teaching. insidehighered.com/blogs/just-vis…
I started drafting my post last week before I read this piece from @kevinrmcclure and Alisa Hicklin Fryar, which makes clear that even those who remain engaged in the work are feeling alienated and lost. Institutions better wake up. chronicle.com/article/the-gr…
The pandemic was (still is) and opportunity for a reset. We could have a higher education system that doesn't require people to be used up and spit out. My vision is here: beltpublishing.com/products/susta…
I miss teaching in a higher ed institutional context all the time, but I increasingly wonder if that thing I miss doesn't exist anymore. Some of it is my changed perspective on the system, but it's also the further erosion of the system itself.

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More from @biblioracle

Jan 20
Always fascinated about this particular genre of op-ed. Want to explore why I don't think it's doing what the authors would like to claim they're trying to do. Image
The surface-level positioning here is an intention to highlight the superior threat of the Magaverse on our democratic processes as compared to the progressive left. The authors would claim they're trying to convince conservatives to reject Maga. they are not achieving this, tho.
First, if the goal is to highlight the disproportionate authoritarian threat of the right Magaverse, spending over 1/3 of your piece to trot out the case for left/liberal authoritarian tendencies is not an effective rhetorical choice.
Read 13 tweets
Jan 13
A couple of days ago I did a thread on the difference between "debaters" and "illuminators" in public writing, using @tressiemcphd as an example of an illuminator. Today I have an object example of a debater.👇🧵
As I tried to show in the earlier thread, an illuminator is interested in shining a light on a phenomenon in order to increase the sum total of our collective understanding of that phenomenon.
A debater wants to "win" an argument, winning being gauged by moving people toward your position, or receiving approval or what have you. Winning may require obscuring as much or more than illuminating.
Read 22 tweets
Jan 12
I have taught thousands of college students. I have never looked a parent in the eye and told them "I will watch out for their child." Am I off base or are elites different than the rest of us? insidehighered.com/blogs/just-vis…
The time I have spent thinking about a student's parents in relation to the student's work in my college course is less than negligible, pretty much zero. Parents have no productive role in that dynamic, IMO.
I very much try to practice an ethic of care when it comes to working with students, but that's a compact between me and the students, not me pledging anything to their parents. That shit's just weird.
Read 5 tweets
Jan 11
Holy smokes is @tressiemcphd good. The way this weaves together multiple strands of culture to illuminate the world we're living in is just a master class of writing as thinking. nytimes.com/2022/01/10/opi…
It's so interesting to contrast piece linked above with the writing of some of the prominent Substack politics and policy heroes. @tressiemcphd is fundamentally an "illuminator" someone who shines light on a phenomenon in an attempt to understand it better. In contrast...
...we have folks I won't name who act as "debators" are trying to win an argument, often by placing the topic on ground most favorable to them. They must often obscure, rather than illuminate because full illumination would show more complexity & undermine their argument.
Read 8 tweets
Dec 27, 2021
Whenever I see these sorts of tweets, first, I want to know what we're talking about with the word "rigor." Is it the rigor of passing an exam after delivering sandwiches for Jimmy John's until 3am? Because that's the kind of challenge students I'm familiar with face.
This debate about the utility of the SAT/ACT for admissions decisions is tedious because it's the same debate over and over, a debate which misses the fact that the vast majority of students attend schools where their test score is largely irrelevant to the admission decision.
But because we put so much weight on selectivity as a metric for "quality" the most selective schools get the vast majority of resources and attention. They are not representative. CUNY is a far more important driver of economic opportunity than the Ivy League.
Read 12 tweets
Dec 1, 2021
Always psyched when a debate about the 5PE breaks out on here because it's an opportunity to air out the folklore around writing instruction and hopefully move towards a deeper understanding of the kinds of things students must experience to learn to think and write well.
As I say in my book on why we need to kill the 5PE, the problems are largely structural. There's good reasons to teach the 5PE. THAT's the problem. We need to eliminate the incentives for teaching the 5PE so students can engage with writing as it actually works.
There is a bonkers sale @JHUPress right now, including Why They Can't Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necsessities. Take advantage! jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/why-they…
Read 10 tweets

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